The world’s first 'Library of Mistakes' which aims to document financial history will officially open in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

The free public library, which is stocked with more than 2,000 books on finance and related subjects, has been funded with support from a Scottish charity and a number of private donors.

Former Chancellor Lord Lamont will officially open the library, located at Wemyss Place Mews, at a reception on Tuesday evening.

The Library’s founders hope the library “will help us all understand how finance has worked, rather than how it should work if theoretical and unrealistic assumptions are made”.

Russell Napier, a consultant to the brokerage CLSA and author of Anatomy of a Bear, is the Library’s Keeper.

He said: “Why does the world need a Library of Mistakes? Because smart people keep doing stupid things.

“There are of course very good reasons why they do. Anyone trying to plan for the future will face both the known unknowns and also the unknown unknowns upon which Donald Rumsfeld once opined so eloquently.

“At the Library of Mistakes we can see the beauty in mistakes. They can be serendipitous.

“But even when they are not, their study still has value as human progress is based upon learning from mistakes.

“The more we know about why smart people do stupid things, the fewer stupid things we might do.

“So the Library of Mistakes provides a resource for the study of such mistakes as we seek to fulfil our motto - Mundum mutatu errore singillatim (changing the world one mistake at a time).”